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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Seriously? 0 and 1 are entirely imaginary, no less than the other examples I gave; they are imposed on the world, not inferred from it.

This is true. What is not true is that there is only the choice between belief and disbelief. There is also the situation where the victim hasn't even heard about the two things he's supposed to choose between.

And then, there is the greater false dichotomy, which is that there is only the choice between belief in the "one true god" and disbelief. I'm sure I posted this some months ago, but there is an infinity of possible "one true gods" as well as an infinity of multiple or co-gods to choose from. There is most certainly NOT just the choice between your "one true god" and no god. The FSM, and Zeus (and company) and others that you haven't heard of yet are just as valid as choices for gods. The fact that you have eliminated them doesn't mean that they are out of contention.

The problem is that believers get locked into their own belief system, which must, of course, be true. For the believer, there is only us and them; belief in our belief system or belief in some other belief system. The concept of disbelief in all of this rot is usually to alien for them to accept. Once they are able to step outside of it, they are able to see it for the sham that it really is. This doesn't happen very often, regardless of which god-myth we're talking about.

It certainly has a cult like following which could be called 'believers'. Would the master god be the 'Penguin"? or would it be the 'Gnome'?

I think this calls for a new set of Distro's! The Egyptians had a plethora of cool deities that would be useful such as Sobek could be the Firewall god and Anubis the master of dead files, Baal could be the generator for new files. We could do the same for each major religion of Antiquity, Odin could run the dictionary, Thor could hurl lightening bolts when things go wrong, Loki could play mischief on the network. But if someone tried to do this with an Abrahamic religion it just goes dead! A one god solution does not make for an entertaining distro.

It certainly has a cult like following which could be called 'believers'. Would the master god be the 'Penguin"? or would it be the 'Gnome'?

I think this calls for a new set of Distro's! The Egyptians had a plethora of cool deities that would be useful such as Sobek could be the Firewall god and Anubis the master of dead files, Baal could be the generator for new files. We could do the same for each major religion of Antiquity, Odin could run the dictionary, Thor could hurl lightening bolts when things go wrong, Loki could play mischief on the network. But if someone tried to do this with an Abrahamic religion it just goes dead! A one god solution does not make for an entertaining distro.

I don't know where you were going with the rest of the post saying that nothing can be defined without a counterpart... I don't agree with that premise at all.
If I had to define a male, I need to include the woman just by the nature of the thing. But that doesn't mean that one alone could not be defined. Some lizzard species have only female individuals. They cannot evolve through recombination, and therefore have poor adaption which sucks for them, but it doesn't mean they should puff into philosophical smoke just because you don't like it. We still have the carbon unit 'lizzard' with detachable tail and everything.
One color can be defined by its wavelengh. If there were no other wavelenghs There simply wouldn't be colors and technicolor would go out of business, but we could still refer to it as light, and we could still define it by wavelengh, vaccuum speed and particle qualities. I don't see your reasoning there at all.

I don't know where you were going with the rest of the post saying that nothing can be defined without a counterpart... I don't agree with that premise at all.
If I had to define a male, I need to include the woman just by the nature of the thing. But that doesn't mean that one alone could not be defined. Some lizzard species have only female individuals. They cannot evolve through recombination, and therefore have poor adaption which sucks for them, but it doesn't mean they should puff into philosophical smoke just because you don't like it. We still have the carbon unit 'lizzard' with detachable tail and everything.
One color can be defined by its wavelengh. If there were no other wavelenghs There simply wouldn't be colors and technicolor would go out of business, but we could still refer to it as light, and we could still define it by wavelengh, vaccuum speed and particle qualities. I don't see your reasoning there at all.

As I said, sign system are entirely arbitrary. Male versus female is only one among many possible dichotomies; one could define an animal also in terms of human vs. non-human, mammal vs. non-mammal, legs vs. no legs, large vs. small, detachable tail or not, etc. - the set of distinguishing features is potentially endless. The same goes for wavelength, where your suggestion to define it in terms of light only ends up shifting the problem into a new area: now you need to define light, which you would do in terms of light vs dark, weak vs strong, fast vs slow, etc. - just take the color spectrum, pick out one colour and imagine how it woud make sense it you eliminated - once an for all - all the other variations.

I was just disagreeing with the premise. I have no clue whatsoever what the argument is.
But anyway... because it's kind of fun... You can definitely define light without darkness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

If the other spectrums were not there then the TERM e.g. 'green' would fall apart, but not the thing itself. And the term changed because you artifically changed the conditions so it no longer makes sense to make a differentiation. It does not mean that one cannot exist without the other. It just means that your description of it no longer applies... that's completely different.

If the other spectrums were not there then the TERM e.g. 'green' would fall apart, but not the thing itself. And the term changed because you artifically changed the conditions so it no longer makes sense to make a differentiation. It does not mean that one cannot exist without the other.

Blaspemy! How exactly are we supposed to know anything without a "term" (the proper word would be "concept")? It really is not very hard to get what I mean. If you do not know, say, Sanskrit, then all you need to do is grab an ancient text written in that language and try to make sense of it. Tough? Of course, because you have not learned the relevant linguistic concepts.
Now, as you suggest, whether you know Sanskrit or not, whether its grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, etc. had been established or not, the "thing" (text) would still be there. Well no, not really. You would only know that it is Sanskrit because you were told it is. And you would only know that it is a text, again, either because you were told or because you have met texts in your life before and you find the object in question to be quite like it. Would it be a text to a species that does not use human language, much less written language? Imagine how it would appear to, say, a fly.Without conceptualization, the "text" would not even constitute a "thing" because "thing" is a concept, too.

Edit: just to preclude any confusion, when I say that it would not even be a thing, I do not mean that "it" would mysteriously disappear. It would still be perceived but our perception of it would be meaningless, much like air must be to a species that has not even begun to think about it.

Assignment for the day: describe the difference between red and green to someone who has red-green color-blindness. Advanced credit: describe color to those who are completely color-blind, in a meaningful manner.

Jay, I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that one would be meaningless without the other. Let's stay with man/woman or blue/green just for simplicity.
If all that lived would reproduce asexually then those lifeforms wouldn't become meaningless. Just your concept of sexuality would become meaningless - which those critters could not possibly care less about. Just because your concept of something looses it's meaning does not have any effect on the physical world.
If all you're saying is that a definition or concept will fall apart if you remove a vital part of what makes it what it is - that's like, doh - obvious. Who cares? Where are you going with this?
Atheism infers believe, that's absolutely correct. Without people believing in invicible sky authorities, it would be pointless to take a counter position. It would be the default condition.